"Of course it means things to me," she said. "Anyway because it does to you. You came up here sick, sick at heart, sick in your mind, because you've been through the War and you've seen what's underneath our proprieties and our hypocrisies. You see we're still in the jungle. And it's nearly killed you out, Rookie, the dear you inside you that's not at home in the jungle. You wouldn't believe me if I told you what kind of a Rookie you are. Things hurt you like blazes. And then here comes Old Crow, just as if he rose out of his grave and pointed a finger at you. And he says, 'Don't be afraid, even of the jungle.' And suddenly you weren't afraid. And now you're afraid again, and talk about downward curves, and all that. Why, Rookie, I'm older than you are, years and years." Raven's mouth and eyes were wide open in amazement at her. "I'm damned!" said he conversationally. "The way you young things go on. You put us in our places. Dick does, too. You've heard him. But, as I remember, then you had a tendency to choke him off." "We won't discuss Dick," said she, again prim as a dish. "And I'm not putting you in your place because I belong to my own generation. It's only because you fill up the foreground. I have to look at you. I can't see anything else. I never could. And as a matter of fact, I don't belong to this generation. I haven't got their conceit and their swagger. Sometimes I wish I had. I can't even talk their slang. I can't smoke a cigarette." Then Raven remembered, as if she had invited a beam of light to throw up what would appeal to him as her perfections, that she did seem to him an alien among her youthful kind, and a shy alien at that, as if she hoped they might not discover how different she was and put her through some of those subtle tortures the young have in wait for a strange creature in the herd. "No," he said, "you're not like the rest of them. I should have said it was because you're more beautiful. But it's something beyond that. What is it?" "Don't you know?" said Nan, turning to him, incredulous and even a little accusatory, as if he should long ago have settled it for her doubting mind whether it was a gain for her or irreparable loss. "No, I see you don't. Well, it's Aunt Anne." "Aunt Anne?"